50 Cent: Blood on the Sand

"50 Cent? Must be bad right? No wait! It's really good."

A game with 50 Cent as the main character. Must be rubbish right? No. Actually its good. Really good.

So whats the plot? Well its completely ridiculous. You are 50 Cent and have just played the final gig of your tour in the middle east. You come off stage demanding your 10 million in payment and pull a gun on the promoter when he refuses. Instead of payment he offers you a diamond encrusted human skull. You seem happy with that and set off to the airport, along the way you get ambushed and the skull gets stolen. Rightly angry Mr Fiddy then gets out his guns and sets off with a partner from G-Unit to get it back!!!

I have to say that the plot makes zero sense from then on. Characters are introduced with no real explanation and really you have no real idea of whats going on. But it doesn't matter to much because this game is one of the few examples where an overblown plot just adds to the fun. So its best just to roll with it.

So whats the gameplay? Well, its very similar to Gears of War, with cover system and virtually the same controls. However, when you dispatch enemies you get a score which adds up dependent on combos\explosive kills\fire kills\ headshots etc. You can also earn bonus points as at certain times during the level you are given timed bonus objectives (kill X number of enemies, collect X amount of money etc.). It is a system that works extremely well and adds a lot of fun to the gameplay, at the end of the level you are awarded a gold\silver\bronze medal depending on your score. This is then updated to a leaderboard to compare with your friends. The only negative point is that most of your score is dependent on the collectibles you pick up during the mission rather than your effectiveness at taking out enemies.

The gameplay works very smoothly and moving 50 Cent around is very fluid. The level design is interesting and the enemy placement is well thought out. It is obvious alot of effort went into this game.

The drop in\drop out co-op option for a friend to play the G-Unit character also runs very smoothly and I played several games and experienced had zero lag. This is a game which works extremely well in coop mode and is alot of fun.

It is very difficult to find anything bad to say about this game. The only things holding it back are that its not very long. Most likely it needs a playthrough once on easy to earn the cash needed for the weapon upgrades and a second on hard. So this game probably only lasts around 15 hours in total. Hard is at the right balance of being challenging but not frustrating. The other downside is that this would have benefited from multiplayer. I don't normally like most multiplayer gamemodes that seem to be shoehorned into what should just be a single player game. But I think the combat system works so well in this game then it would have been a good addition.

If you are a 50 Cent fan the soundtrack will no doubt please you as well as some of the songs are exclusives. If like me you really are not a fan then don't worry as it never becomes intrusive into the gameplay.

Overall, override your instinct that tells you any game starring a rapper should be awful and give this one a go. It'll surprise you. But I would recommend it as a rental and not a purchase.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 02/23/09

Game Release: 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand (EU, 02/20/09)